Why the Vote Wasn't Enough for Selma

✍ Scribed by Karlyn Forner

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 371
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In Why the Vote Wasn't Enough for Selma Karlyn Forner rewrites the heralded story of Selma to explain why gaining the right to vote did not bring about economic justice for African Americans in the Alabama Black Belt. Drawing on a rich array of sources, Forner illustrates how voting rights failed to offset decades of systematic disfranchisement and unequal investment in African American communities. Forner contextualizes Selma as a place, not a moment within the civil rights movement —a place where black citizens' fight for full citizenship unfolded alongside an agricultural shift from cotton farming to cattle raising, the implementation of federal divestment policies, and economic globalization. At the end of the twentieth century, Selma's celebrated political legacy looked worlds apart from the dismal economic realities of the region. Forner demonstrates that voting rights are only part of the story in the black freedom struggle and that economic justice is central to achieving full citizenship.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Interlude: The Constitution of 1901
1 The World That Cotton Made: 1901–1916
Interlude: World War I and Making the World Safe for Democracy
2“Our Country First, Then Selma”:1917–1929
Interlude: The Great Depression
3 Plowing Under: 1932–1940
Interlude: Craig Air Force Base
4 Becoming White-Faced Cows: 1941–1952
Interlude: “I Like Ike”
5 Segregation’s Last Stand: 1953–1964
Interlude: 1965
6 Making the “Good Freedom”: 1965–1976
Interlude: Closing Craig Air Force Base
7 “Last One Out of Selma, Turn Off the Lights”: 1977–1988
Interlude: Superintendent Norward Roussell and School Leveling
8 Two Selmas: 1989–2000
interludeJoe Gotta Go
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index